


Old-Fashioned Methods

by seren_ccd



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3453821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seren_ccd/pseuds/seren_ccd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurs to Christine, as she glares at the man who has just overridden her comment in class, that she might have a type. She's not exactly happy about this. McCoy/Chapel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old-Fashioned Methods

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for raktajinos, as part of the mccoy_chapel Fic Exchange. Beta'd by the most wonderful fringedweller.

It occurs to Christine, as she glares at the man who has just overridden her comment in class, that she might have a type.  
  
Said type is tall, and intelligent with dark eyes and large hands.  
  
Said type is also brusque, determined, and has just interrupted her extremely well thought-out surgical suggestion.  
  
Said type’s aforementioned dark eyes are flashing with energy and amusement as he argues with her.  
  
Said type is, quite frankly, hot.  
  
Said type is also pissing her off.  
  
Because he’s right. His suggestion is better. It’s more accurate and it’s more efficient.  
  
Damn it.  
  
So utterly typical.  


* * *

  
  
“Well, that’s a face,” Janice Rand says to her when Christine sits down in a huff at the picnic table outside the academy cafeteria. “Who did what and are they still breathing?”  
  
“I just got my ignorance about surgical procedures on Cardassians shoved in my face,” Christine says stabbing a fork into her salad.  
  
“Sorry?” Janice offers. “Although, aren’t we here to learn? I doubt your instructor is upset with you for getting something wrong.”  
  
“It wasn’t an instructor,” Christine says spearing a cherry tomato. “It was another student.”  
  
Janice makes a face. “Oh. I see.” Her eyes flicker above Christine’s head and she asks, “It wasn’t a tall guy with a frown that looks etched onto his face, was it?”  
  
Christine pauses mid-bite and says, “Well, that’s scary. How did you know?”  
  
“He’s headed this way,” Janice says with a shrug.  
  
Christine hurriedly swallows the tomato and turns around. Sure enough, the guy from her class is striding directly towards her and stops when he’s a few feet away. Christine blinks up at him.  
  
“You weren’t wrong,” he says bluntly. “You can remove the spleen with the procedure you suggested. But in an emergency situation during triage, when you’ve got to be fast and dirty, you go in through the front.”  
  
Christine stares at him and then nods. “Okay.”  
  
“I just…you weren’t wrong,” he says. “Simmons should have mentioned that.”  
  
“Why are you mentioning it?” she asks.  
  
“Because you gave a good fight and it’s been awhile since I’ve had that much fun in a classroom,” he says. “And I like to stay on the good side of a woman who obviously knows her way around a scalpel.”  
  
She ignores Janice’s muffled snicker and just nods. “Good instincts, Cadet.”  
  
“McCoy,” he says. “Leonard McCoy. Doctor Leonard McCoy, actually.”  
  
Christine raises her eyebrows. “Doctor? That’s why you knew the procedure that wasn’t in the textbooks.”  
  
“My residency involved the aftermath of a crash site with some Cardassians and we had someone with a ruptured spleen,” he says. “There’s a hell of a lot out there that you can’t learn in a book, Cadet, uh…”  
  
“Chapel,” Christine says. “Christine Chapel. And my friend, Janice Rand.”  
  
McCoy nods at Janice. “Cadet Rand.”  
  
“Howdy,” Janice says grinning.  
  
“How’d you know about the procedure?” he asks.  
  
“I originally trained as a nurse,” she says. “But in general practice, very little emergency.”  
  
“So, you’re looking to become a surgeon,” he says nodding.  
  
“That’s the general plan,” she says.  
  
“Well, you’ll make it,” he states firmly. “You’ve clearly got nerves of steel and you fight for what you want. I look forward to more discussions, Chapel.”  
  
“You sure?” Christine asks, starting to grin. “I like winning. I like winning _a lot_.”  
  
“She really does,” Janice pipes up with. “I can’t play Risk with her anymore because she gets super intense.”  
  
McCoy smiles and his face transforms from simply handsome, to way too handsome to be allowed. “I’ll take my chances.”  
  
He holds out his hand. “Truce? Until the next battle, that is?”  
  
“Truce,” Christine says shaking his hand.  
  
Oh, crap.   
  
Tingles.  
  
Tingles all the way up her arm, through her chest, and down to her stomach.  
  
Damn it.  
  
McCoy just shakes her hand like she isn’t experiencing the nerve explosions, the bastard, and then nodding to Janice, heads towards the cafeteria.  
  
Christine frowns and turns back to her salad.  
  
“Seems like a nice guy,” Janice says.  
  
“Yep,” Christine says.  
  
“Cute.”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
“Polite.”  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
“Tall.”  
  
“Are you coming to point anytime soon?”  
  
Janice taps her spoon on her yogurt pot and grins. “Seems like he’s your type.”  
  
“I don’t have a type,” Christine says frowning and glaring at her salad and wishing desperately it was a slice of her grandmother’s pecan pie.  
  
“Liar,” Janice says fondly.  
  
Christine sighs. “I know.”  


* * *

  
  
Then comes Roger Korby. Who is also her type. And there goes several years of her life that she doesn’t get back.  
  
Until…she does.  
  
Of course, it involves her grabbing a phaser and shooting her ex-fiancé smack in his smug robotic face. The experience leaves her with a rather jaundiced view of marriage and she resolves to give up tall, overly-intelligent doctors and find herself a new type.  


* * *

  
  
Six months after she decommissions her ex-fiancé, she comes very close to smacking McCoy with a tricorder.   
  
They're on a planet that doesn't have a name (yet, Janice says that Starfleet's bureaucracy is a thing of beauty and that you can't rush these things) and in a display of goodwill, Kirk offered McCoy and Chapel to the local healer to assist in his rounds of the villages.  
  
Shortly upon arrival in one village, Christine finds her hands inserted into the ribcage of a dying young man while McCoy yells at her to keep his heart pumping.  
  
She's holding someone's heart in her hands.  
  
She alternates between bewilderment, awe, and wanting to throw up.  
  
She settles for glaring at McCoy because he keeps smirking at her while he saves the young man's life.  
  
Afterwards, she asks, "Was that really necessary? We have equipment that would have stimulated his aorta just as well, if not better than, my hands."  
  
"Of course it was necessary," he says. "I doubt these people would have let you hook him up to anything, they prefer ancient methods." He eyes her. "You're just pissed off because I made you do something you don’t know how to do."  
  
That's the moment she almost throws her tricorder at him. The only thing that holds her back is the incredibly annoying fact that he's right and she wants to learn more.  
  
Damn it.  
  
Back on the Enterprise, it still takes her a full 36 hours before she goes to him.  
  
Christine steels herself and then palms the chime for McCoy’s office.  
  
“Come in,” his voice rings out.  
  
She takes a deep breath and enters. He looks up from his PADD. “Nurse Chapel. To what do I owe the honor? Lieutenant Parks hasn’t started complaining yet, has he?”  
  
“He did, actually,” she says. “But I told him that due to his lack of a kidney he couldn’t just jump back into the Jeffries tubes to beat Lieutenant Scott’s score.”  
  
“Good woman,” he says. He taps on his PADD for a second and tosses it on his desk. “But I’m guessing that’s not why you’re in here.”  
  
“I want to learn hands on trauma surgery,” she says, startling them both by blurting it out.  
  
He stares at her and then says, "Okay.”  
  
She blinks. “Okay? Just…okay?”  
  
“Of course,” he says. “You think I’m going to pass up the chance to teach you how to get your hands dirty while saving someone’s life?”  
  
“When you put it that way…no?” she says.  
  
He grins. “Take the evening, Chapel and report back here at 0600 hours. We have a lot to cover.”  
  
She turns to leave and just as she clears the door, she hears him mutter, "Took you long enough."  


* * *

  
  
She likes it.  
  
Learning the older methods, the ones that involve figuring out ailments by touch alone and by looking with her own eyes without the aid of technology, she likes it.  
  
She likes it a lot.  
  
And what makes it even better?   
  
She’s good at it.  
  
Until one day…she isn’t.  
  
Oh, she did everything right, but she wasn’t fast enough and the phaser wound had hit just the wrong spot on Ensign Rogers and truthfully, no one could have saved him, but it was still her hands that tried to staunch the flow of blood.  
  
There’s a break in the fighting and she goes to a small alcove and tries to get her hands to stop shaking.  
  
She’s sitting on the ground, her head in her hands when she hears him come over. He sits down next to her with a grunt that’s part exhaustion and part aching muscles. (She knows this because she made the same noise when she sat down.)  
  
“Simmons is stable,” he says after a few minutes of silence. “And Scotty’s making progress on getting us back in touch with the Enterprise.”  
  
“Good,” she says flatly, staring at the stone wall in front of her, but not really seeing anything.  
  
After another moment of silence, McCoy speaks again.  
  
“Chapel,” McCoy says in that tone of voice that always makes her look him in the eyes, with that eyebrow of his arched only slightly. “Do you know why I requested you as Head Nurse?”  
  
“My sterling bedside manner?” she replies.  
  
He points his finger at her. “Don’t joke. Yours is light-years better than mine and don’t think people haven’t pointed that out to me multiple times. I requested you because you’re driven. Because you want the best for people, even at the detriment to yourself.” He leans forward. “Stop beating yourself up, Christine.”  
  
She’s stunned more by the sound of her first name, the way his accent harshens the ‘Chr’, than by the fact that he cares.  
  
Christine sighs. “That’s a damn tall order, McCoy.”  
  
“I know, honey,” he says. “It is. But we’ve got more wounded incoming and while I have every faith that Jim will get us out of this mess, he hasn’t done it yet.”  
  
“McCoy, are you actually attempting to diplomatically tell me to suck it up and get back out there?” she asks.  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” he says grinning. “How’d I do?”  
  
“Honestly? Better than I thought you would,” she says taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet.  
  
“I aim to please,” he says. “Now, come on and get those hands dirty.”  
  
“You’re a pain in my ass, McCoy,” she says brushing past him.  
  
“And what a first class ass it is,” he replies.  
  
She must be verging on delirious, because she puts a bit of sway into it and grins when she hears him chuckle.  
  
They manage to successfully triage the rest of the newly wounded before the captain gets a ceasefire arranged.  


* * *

  
  
It’s no secret that the Enterprise's away team track record is pretty pitiful, but to be fair, it's really due to the fact that the Enterprise is usually the first on the intergalactic scene and therefore the first to deal with hostilities. At least that’s what the reports all state. And no one really has any room to complain considering they all signed up for the whole ‘exploring new life and new civilizations, boldly going’ and so on and so forth.  
  
All the same, when McCoy takes a slash to the mid-section from a damn sword, Christine doesn't give a flying fig about new civilizations and going boldly. She’s too busy trying to get him to lie down so she can stitch him up enough to keep his insides from going outside.  
  
She knows she’s seen blood before, but it seems so much darker and there’s so much of it pouring out of him.  
  
“Glad we spent that afternoon stitching,” he manages to say while she threads a needle (a god damned needle, damn the Prime Directive to all the hells that exist) and starts to quickly sew up the layers of skin, hoping that it’s only superficial and hasn’t nicked anything vital.  
  
He makes a pained noise and the skin is turning red under her hands and he’s gone very, very pale.  
  
“It’s internal, isn’t it?” she asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer, just yells over her shoulder. “Captain! Whatever you’re doing, do it fast! He needs surgery!”  
  
Kirk yells something back at her, but she ignores it to focus on her stitching.  
  
“Keep ‘em straight, Christine,” McCoy mumbles. “Hate to have a scar.”  
  
“But ladies like a few battle wounds on their men,” she forces out, keeping her hands steady. “It’s sexy.”  
  
He just groans in an answer and his eyelids start to flutter. He’s losing consciousness.  
  
“No,” she says forcefully, internally willing the tears back down. “Wake up. You do not get to do this, McCoy. Stay awake.”  
  
“Love how you boss me around, honey,” he says through gritted teeth, his eyes opening into slits. “Don’t beat yourself up if I don’t make it.”  
  
“Shut up,” she tells him. “If only because you hate it whenever someone starts saying premature good-byes in sickbay, so don’t you dare be a hypocrite now.”  
  
“Good point,” he says grinning, blood staining his teeth. “Should I just talk about how much I always wanted to see you naked?”  
  
“You have seen me naked,” she says.   
  
“Quarantine cubicles don’t count,” he says. “And I didn’t peek.”  
  
“Yes, you did,” she says managing a laugh.  
  
“Yeah,” he says closing his eyes. “I did. You’re beautiful, Chapel.”  
  
"Hey, don’t you dare,” she says her voice going shrill. “McCoy! Wake up!”  
  
It’s a good three hours before he regains consciousness and by the time he does, they’re back on the Enterprise where Christine and Dr M’Benga have reconstructed part of his intestines and removed his appendix considering both had been nicked. If Christine hadn’t worked as quickly as she did, it could have been much, much worse.  
  
As it is, he’s going to be confined to a bed for at least 72 hours.   
  
Christine doesn’t envy the night staff.  
  
She waits around long enough for his eyes to open and when he looks at her, something heavy settles in her stomach. She manages a smile and then slips away while Dr M’Benga looks him over.  
  
She’s also not at all surprised when her door chimes eight hours later.  
  
The opened door reveals McCoy on the other side, his gaze intense and his hands clenched into fists at his side.  
  
Christine just sighs and leans against the doorjamb. “I see that Geoff’s instructions for bed-rest were utterly pointless.”  
  
“Of course,” he says. “I signed myself out when he wasn’t looking.”  
  
She shakes her head. “You’re impossible.”  
  
“And you’ve been avoiding me,” he counters.  
  
“You’re right,” she says nodding. “I have.” She has to laugh at his stunned expression and curls her hand around his upper arm and pulls him inside.  
  
“It was…too much, Len,” she says hesitantly. “I care for you. A lot. And seeing you like that.” She closes her eyes. “It was too much.”  
  
“And now?” he asks quietly. “Is it too much, now?”  
  
“No,” she says opening her eyes. “But I don’t want to undo all of my hard work by pulling you on top of me and getting you to pound me into this mattress.”  
  
His eyes darken and he leans forward. “There’s an easy solution to that problem, Chapel,” he says, his voice low and his accent strong and just this side of downright dirty.  
  
“Which is?” she asks breathlessly.  
  
“You get to be on top,” he says and then she is and his mouth is under hers and his hands are holding her so tightly she can’t help but squirm happily on top of his hips.  
  
Later, as they’re drifting off to sleep, he mutters, “Thanks for saving my life, Chapel.”  
  
“Thanks for teaching me antiquated medical techniques,” she says, pressing a kiss to his bare chest.  
  
He snorts a bit and then just chuckles.  
  
“What?” she asks.  
  
“Nothing, just…never thought a tough blonde was going to end up being my type,” he says.  
  
Christine just smiles.


End file.
